


Internal Reward

by twinsarein



Category: Smallville
Genre: Alternate Reality, Coda, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-04
Updated: 2010-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-09 16:18:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/89305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twinsarein/pseuds/twinsarein
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if one of the places Clark ran after learning he was an alien is the Luthor mansion?  What might have changed?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Internal Reward

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ctbn60](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ctbn60/gifts).



> Major spoilers for the Pilot.

Clark runs. He runs until he hits the Gulf of Mexico, lets his shoes get saturated with the warm, salty water as he kicks out at the surf. Even the vastness of the water is too small for the turmoil inside of him, however. He runs back to Kansas, but isn’t sure where to go. He isn’t ready to go home. _Why hadn’t his parents told him?!_ He can’t go to his friends. _God! How could he tell them? They’d look at him like he was a freak._ It doesn’t help to finally realize that he is. A complete freak. Not human at all. Not just strong. Not just fast. Other. Completely and utterly other.

Without conscious thought, he winds up at the mansion of the Luthors. It has some nice gardens with a gazebo in the middle. Even though no one has lived there since it was finished, it’s still been maintained as though it were occupied. Clark has come here before to think and brood.

Not so much since he and his dad had finished the Fortress, but he so doesn’t want to be anywhere near home right now.

“Clark?”

Oh, right. It’s occupied now.

“Clark, that is you, isn’t it?”

Clark turns to the voice, years or ingrained manners coming to his rescue. “Hello, Mr. Luthor. I’m sorry I trespassed. I’ll go and leave you to your privacy.”

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Clark walks out of the gazebo and almost brushes against the other man while leaving. Only a quick twist of his upper body prevents a collision. After all, his freakazoid, **alien** body can do serious damage to tender, **human** flesh.

He’s stopped by slim fingers being laid across his bicep. They don’t even grip, just a light touch, but it still stops him in his tracks. He feels an unfamiliar tingle at the touch, but it’s drowned by the chaos still in his mind.

Lex doesn’t want this young man to disappear so quickly this time. In spite of the circumstances, he’d enjoyed talking to him the other day. “It’s Lex, Clark. Not Mr. Luthor. You haven’t forgotten our conversation while waiting for the paramedics already, have you?”

Clark just stands, head down, waiting for…Lex…to lift his hand so he can go. Instead, the man swings in front of him and puts a hand on both shoulders and tries to get Clark to look at him. Clark won’t, but that doesn’t stop him.

“Hey, what’s wrong? Something is obviously bothering you.” Lex starts urging Clark back into the gazebo. “C’mon, Clark, sit down and talk to me. I’d like to think of us as friends after what happened the other day.”

Clark lets himself be led, but then hunches in on himself. Lex slips to his knees on the smooth wooden floor, and looks up into Clark’s face. He quickly cuts off his indrawn breath as he gets his first look at Clark’s face today. If he’d thought the teenager was beautiful while sopping wet, then it was nothing on how he looked in his misery. Lex closes his eyes momentarily to the sight to help him refocus.   “I may not have had many friends in my life, but I do know they talk to each other. C’mon, Clark…”

Clark looks down and to the side, trying to get away from Lex’s scrutiny, but Lex isn’t making it easy for him. Finally, he looks up, eyes full of misery. “You don’t want to be my friend, Lex. You really don’t. I’m nothing more than a freak.”

Lex feels a surge of excitement at Clark’s words, but he ruthlessly suppresses it. He'd known there was something different and special about this young man, but this isn’t the time. “Clark, it’s normal for teenagers to feel that way. None of us get through those years unscathed. I’m sure…”

Clark’s wordless cry cuts off whatever Lex was going to say next. Then he clenches his hands together and visibly struggles to get himself back under some sort of control. “It isn’t like that for me. This isn’t normal. There isn’t anything normal about me. Have you ever been told something that completely turned your life upside down and made you question who you are or your place in the world?”

With a wry look, Lex runs a hand over his bald head. “Oh, Clark, you have no idea.” Then he gentles his tone, as if he’s talking to a skittish horse, and lays his hands over the brunette’s. “Is that what happened to you, today?”

Clark’s hands tremble under the touch and his eyes well up from the sympathetic tone.  “My whole life is a lie, Lex. I’ve been taught to hide who I am and what I can do for as long as I can remember. I lie to my friends on a daily basis, and my parents lie to their friends, our neighbors, and the rest of Smallville all the time. But I thought we were at least honest with each other. Only now, I find out that the people I could always count on were hiding me even from me. I don’t know who to trust anymore, if I can’t trust them.”

Lex gives a little laugh, but cuts it off abruptly when Clark’s hands jerk under his. Lex tightens his grip, and Clark knows he can’t run off without hurting the smaller man. “I’m not laughing at you, Clark. Believe me on that. I’m just amused at how parallel our situations seem. I know all about betrayal from a parent and lies you can’t get away from. But, Clark, based on what I saw yesterday, you’re loved very much. Maybe you have been lied to, but did you think about **why**?”

Clark blinked silently for a few seconds. _Why? No, he hadn’t. He’d just run. He’d learned the truth, didn’t like it, so he’d run away. Still, how could he trust them again? If they’d been lying about something this big for his whole life, what else in his life might be a lie? He was so tired of it all – all the lies and the lying._

“Do you know the first words I spoke to you were a lie?”

Lex is taken aback, but not for long.  A look of excitement crossed his features next. He can’t suppress it this time, but he does try to tone it down. “You mean about me hitting you before going off the bridge?”

Clark bites his lip and watches Lex carefully. “Yeah. It wasn’t exactly a lie, though. It was more of a surprise. I shouldn’t have survived being hit by your car and driven through the railing, but I did. I’ve always been harder to hurt than average, but I’ve gotten bruises, cuts, and scrapes before. I…I…I don’t know…” Clark trails off and looks down miserably again.

Lex has to bite back his first reaction, which is to pump his hands in the air in triumph. He’d known he’d hit Clark. He’d been willing to be convinced, because logically it made more sense that he hadn’t…but he’d **known** he had.

His second reaction rises to the fore and stirs his Luthor blood. It would be so easy to get control of the young man in front of him.   Right now, he’s feeling betrayed and lost. His vulnerability would make him easy to manipulate. He could have Clark spilling all of these secrets he keeps dancing around in seconds. Then, Lex would have the most powerful being he’d ever met under his control. He’d really be able to show his father his mettle then.

Thoughts of his father draw him up short.  He’d vowed to himself that he was going to be better than his father, that he wasn’t going to use people the way his father did. When his father had exiled him to small town America, Lex had decided that he would make a success of himself and turn the plant around, but that he’d do it his way.

Is he now going to forget all of his lofty goals at the first temptation? Lex really looks at Clark again; he takes in every detail of his appearance, from the miserable face to the salt encrusted shoes. S_alt encrusted shoes?! What the hell?_ Everything about Clark raises more questions, and Lex wonders if the young man is just too much temptation for him to resist. It isn’t like he’s had a lot of practice in denying himself.

Raising a hand that he forces to not tremble in eager anticipation, Lex lays it against Clark’s cheek. After a start of surprise, Clark leans into the touch, some of the misery easing out of his expression. _God! _Lex knows that it’d be even easier than he expected and he’d get a bonus of sex with the hottest man he’s ever met. Even if he isn’t quite a man, yet.

Leaning forward, just slightly, Lex watches Clark’s eyes flutter closed. He feels desire coil in his belly. He reaches up with his other hand and rests it on the other side of Clarks face. He rubs his thumbs along the high cheekbones, just under the closed eyes. He hears Clark’s breath hitch a little, and Lex’s cock starts to stir.

“Clark?”

Clark can’t believe how he’s feeling. He’d thought the churning of his stomach whenever he was around Lana was bad, but it's nothing to how he is feeling right now. And, there's no feeling of nausea accompanying the feeling either, which is a very nice change.

The misery he’d been feeling just a few moments before is buried under an avalanche of sensations he’s never experienced. He isn’t quite sure what to do with them, or about them, but with a budding trust for the man in front of him, he knows Lex will help him figure it out. He reaches out his tongue and licks his lips.

“Mmm, yeah, Lex?”

Lex stiffens at the sight of that tongue, a provocative invitation that he just knows is unintentional. That, and Clark’s lowered voice, have his dick hardening nicely. Jesus, Lex really wants him, and with his experience and Clark’s obvious lack of it, it’s easy to tell that Clark wants him, too. Even if he doesn’t completely understand that want yet. Lex is just the man to teach him. _The things he could have Clark do with that mouth_. Lex has to suppress a shudder at the thought.

_God, it’s going to be so easy._ Lex leans in a little more, but instead of taking the kiss as he expected to, he keeps going. He lets go of Clark’s face and slides his arms around the younger man’s shoulders, envelops him in a fiercely tender hug and whispers near his ear.

“Clark, I think you should go home.”

Clark stiffens in his embrace. “What?!”

Lex shakes his head at himself. He isn’t sure whether to be relieved by his decision or disgusted. He knows how his father would have chosen. _Right. So, relieved it is._ “I understand that you’re very upset. I really do. And, even though I don’t know any details, I think you have every right to be. However, they’re your parent’s, and they love you very much. Families only work if everyone sticks together through the bad times as well as the good, and only if you accept and forgive mistakes.”

Clark gapes at him. “But…but…but, I thought…”

Lex reaches up again, but this time lays a finger across those full lips. “There is nothing more that I’d rather to do right now, than take you upstairs, slide my cock into your ass, and rock into you until you orgasm so hard that you black out.”

Clark feels himself blush all over and he can’t seem to keep his eyes on Lex’s anymore. Instead, they skitter over his face, down his chest, and then they spy the bulge behind the man’s tailored pants, and zoom back up to his face, the blush now worse than ever.

“However, I don’t think you’re quite ready for that. Are you?”

Slowly, Clark shakes his head, but interrupts just as Lex opens his mouth the say something else. “But, I will be. Maybe even sooner than you think.”

Lex smirks and doesn’t bank the smoldering of his eyes or try to modulate his voice. “I’ll look forward to that, Clark.” He smiles as Clark tenses up at the tone of his voice, but then clears his throat before he continues. “Meanwhile, we can at least be friends, and I’m pretty sure that a friend would urge you to go home.”

“But, Lex…”

“No. Go home, Clark. Talk to your parents. Tell them what you’ve told me about how you feel. Running away from your problems never helps. Usually, doing so just makes things worse. Needing a little space is different. If you do, you’re always welcome back here, or even inside if you want. You can take your pick of rooms to brood in, and my ear is always available to bend. However, the offer is only open if you’re not running away.”

Clark can’t believe how much better he feels now, than how he’d felt just a few minutes ago. He isn’t even sure why. Nothing’s changed. He’s still an alien; his parents still lied to him. For all that, though, he no longer feels like it’s the end of the world.

Surprisingly, he feels a wave of happiness sweep through him, and he knows it’s because he met Lex. He feels a smile break over his face at his new friend. “Thanks, Lex. I’ve never met anyone like you before. You’re a good friend.”

Lex reels at the blindingly, brilliant smile that’s directed his way. He hadn’t even known smiles like that existed, as if all of Clark’s goodness was shining through. Lex is even gladder of the path he’d chosen. He doesn’t think he’d have ever gotten a chance to see that smile before he marred the soul that housed such a light.

Then, Clark’s words sink in. “A good friend? Me?”

Clark laughs a little. “Well, of course, you. Only the best friends know when it’s time to listen AND when it’s time to give a swift kick in the pants. I’d say today qualifies you.”

Clark stands up and pulls Lex to his feet as well. Then, he envelops the slimmer man in a tight hug. “I’m so glad I met you, Lex. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me today. You really have been a true friend, even though we just met.”

Lex holds himself tense at the beginning of the embrace, but when Clark doesn’t let go, he sinks into it. He can’t remember the last time he got a hug like this. Reluctantly, he starts to disengage. “You need to be getting back, Clark. It’s after dark, and your parents are probably very worried about you. Go home, talk to them.”

Clark lets himself be pushed back, and he nods his head at Lex’s words. He knows his new friend is right. “I will, Lex. But, I can come back again, right.”

“Absolutely. You’re always welcome here. Maybe next time we can try a game of pool. Would you like me to have my driver take you home?”

Clark shakes his head and blushes. “I can…run…really fast. I’ll be home before you can take five steps.”

Lex’s eyes widen at the revelation, as well as at the feeling of warmth that spreads through him at Clark’s additional show of trust. _That probably explains the shoes._ Maybe being good won’t be as hard as he thought, if feelings like this are his reward.


End file.
